


leave it to the wayside

by orphan_account



Series: if you toss me a lifesaver I might grab it [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, Gen, I just think they would make amazing friends, canon-divergence, followup to your whole life is on a ride, heavy bellarke undertones, massacre/ character death disregard, not a romantic braven/rellamy story, ravick undertones, started pre 2x05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 14:35:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3071744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're just two stubborn, lower class assholes struggling to make it on the ground, two cynics who love too hard.<br/>It feels nice, he finds himself thinking whenever their eyes catch across a room, to have an ally like that.</p><p>(continuation of 'your whole life is on a ride')</p>
            </blockquote>





	leave it to the wayside

**Author's Note:**

> here for a part 2. I'm just really into Bellamy and Raven becoming best friends. Like really into it. how is everyone doing post-midseason finale??? hanging in there?
> 
> (also, I was rewatching day trip and I forgot how much I love the Bellamy-hallucinogenic Jaha exchange. about Bellamy not deserving the peace of death, that it isn't the death he's earned. anyways I allude to that here.)
> 
> I recommend you read part 1 before this, but eh. if you don't feel like it it won't be hard to understand.

 

 

 

 

~

_hey now, letters burning by my bed for you_

_hey now, leave it to the wayside like you do_

_for you, imagination calling mirrors for you_

_hey now, hey now_

 

-hey now, london grammar

~

 

 

 

 

 

When he's with Raven, he doesn't think.  It's easy.

 

 

Not to say he doesn't appreciate her and all the wonderful things her body can do.  

He just means that when they're wrapped up in each other, he doesn't feel like he's drowning. Like emotions won't smother him until they push the last bit of air from his chest.

Raven's his equal, in many things, in ways he doesn't often try to define.  He... understands her, like they're cut from the same cloth. 

Two stubborn lower class assholes struggling to make it on the ground, two cynics who love too hard.

It feels nice, he finds himself thinking whenever their eyes catch across a room, to have an ally like that.  

(Bellamy hasn't forgotten that she was the one that saved his life, and was repaid with a bullet in her spine and a limp in her step.  

Another line to add to his ledger.  His death must be something truly horrific if being hanged by the boy he wrongfully attempted to execute isn't the one he earned.)

And he's there for Raven, too.  He hopes she feels that, this friendship, too, that she knows she can depend on him. He doesn't know how to tell her, tell her that she's become a part of his confusing family down here on earth.  

He thinks she might need to hear it. 

Hell, it's something he'd like to hear too.  

This is what he's thinking about as they sit in a comfortable silence, swirling the dregs of whatever alcohol the Ark has brought down in their cups.  

"What's going on, Birdy?" and his eyes flicker up to see Wick, cheeks tinged red and eyes shiny from drinking, bouncing a bit on his heels next to Raven's chair. 

Raven rolls her eyes at Bellamy before swiveling to look at Wick.

She scoffs, unimpressed. "' _Birdy_?'" 

Wick smirks.  "You know, Raven, Bird, Birdy.  I understand if you're a little slow on the uptake, you _are_ only a mechanic after all."

"I understand the nickname, you imbecile.  I just resent it," she says, glaring up at him.  

Bellamy can't help the amused twitch in his lips.  Not many people are brave enough to poke fun at Raven, too scared of her thorns, but Wick seems to have no sense of preservation when it comes to her.  

It's good, he thinks.  Though she'll never admit it, to him or anyone, he knows Raven likes it. Likes being challenged, likes seeing that Wick keeps coming back for more no matter what she throws at him. 

"I'm going to keep call you that-" here Raven's cane darts out to hit him in the hip, but Wick is ready and catches it, grinning, " _unless_ you get a drink with me."  

Raven freezes, for only a moment, but Bellamy notices.  Something resolves behind her eyes before she heaves an overly dramatic sigh.  

" _Fine_ ," she says, as if the one word cost her three years off her life. 

She nods a goodbye to him as she stands, and it takes everything he has to not call her out right in front of Wick.

Bellamy watches her back fondly as she walks with Wick to the bar. 

"Aren't you hitting that?" is how Octavia decides to announce her arrival as she slides into Raven's now unoccupied seat. 

His eyebrows draw together, skin crawling.  

"You did  _not_ just say that to me."

Octavia rolls her eyes.  

Bellamy sighs exasperatedly.

"Sister's are overrated," he grumbles, purposefully loud enough so she hears.

His words have no heat but she socks him ( _fuck she's gotten strong)_ hard in the shoulder anyway.

"Raven and I are just friends, O, how many times do I have to tell you that."  

Octavia crosses her legs, propping an elbow on the table and leaning her head on her hand.

"Okay, so I don't need to warn you that she's into Wick?" she asks primly, like a brat, one eyebrow arching over fake-innocent eyes. 

" _Just. Friends_ ," he hisses from between his teeth, one hand raking through his hair.  This conversation is a tired one, and not for the first time he wishes that Octavia had never found out.  

Not that she wouldn't have figured it out eventually anyways.  

"So when she finally gets with him, your heart's not going to break?"

She's teasing, but Bellamy can detect the underlying concern buried in the tone of her voice, the extra second she takes to search his eyes.  

"Raven's not gunna break my heart,"  he says, a smile threatening to curl his lips.  

"Okay," she concedes breezily, as if she doesn't believe him.  "I'll stop trying to understand your weird friends with benefits thing.  You guys are so un-weird around each other that sometimes I'm actually worried."

Bellamy can only roll his eyes and shrug.  It is what it is. 

During the lull in conversation, Bellamy's gaze, like a fucking magnet, like he doesn't even fucking have a choice anymore, hones in on the appearance of Clarke's golden hair.  She's chatting with Jackson, her mom's assistant, and her expression is lighter than he's seen in what might be days.  

It's a relief when he realizes he doesn't feel jealous, just glad that she almost looks happy, for once. 

Octavia snorts, and his attention snaps back to her.  She's shaking her head, one hand gesturing over her shoulder to where Clarke stands. 

His glare isn't enough to deter her.

"I just don't understand why you're with Raven when without Clarke you probably wouldn't even be able to walk straight," Octavia blurts out, like it's been on the tip of her tongue for weeks, but Bellamy doesn't know if he's going to try explaining this one to her.

The Ark has fucked them both up in terms of love.  Octavia, who had been deprived the experience of having anyone other than him or their mother love her, jumps heart first towards any sign of it, desperate for everything she missed out on.  It's what worries him about Lincoln, that she fell so fast and so hard for a man she barely knows.  

And him... With him, being the only boy with a sister in a place where having a sister was illegal... the only way he knows how to love is a toxic, all-consuming, suffocating bastardization of something that should be pure.  His love killed his mother, locked up Octavia, and nearly ruined their relationship forever once they got to the ground.  

Caring, loving... he knows how much letting that in can hurt, how it feels when bad things happen to people you love and how much worse it is when you know you could have done something different to prevent it. When it's your fault in the first place.

You give in, and you give that power to someone else. 

He'll try to avoid it as much as possible, but with O in his ear and Raven quietly giving him looks, he doesn't know how much longer he can hold on.  Hold out.

Admitting to Raven that he cared about Clarke took a bigger toll than he thought. 

He used to be better at pushing it away. 

* * *

 

"Do you think about her when you're with me?" Raven asks once, after, and there's a curious lilt to her tone, a little bit hesitant, like she isn't sure if she should wonder or not.

He furrows his brow.  "Do you think about him?"

"Sometimes, just for a little bit.  Not long.  I dont need to think about him to get off when I'm with you, you do just fine on your own," she finishes cheekily, but the way her eyes are, still big, watching him, causes the joke to fall flat.  

It would be easy to just leave it at that, knowing she won't ask again, but he wants to give her the same honesty that she's afforded him.  They both aren't easy talkers.  If she's going to admit that then he'll do the same.

"I... yeah. For a few seconds, maybe."  He stops, making the effort to maintain eye contact with her.  "But when I'm with you, I'm with you."

Raven nods in acceptance, and bites her lip.  She's shyer than she's ever been with him, and he realizes that they've mostly navigated their relationship with intuition and unspoken conversations.  

"Do you think it's going to get worse?"

He raises one eyebrow, not wanting to lose her meaning with any assumptions.

"Like," she sighs, rolling off her side to stare at the ceiling, "like it gets so bad that we aren't even fucking each other anymore, we're just placeholder nameless bodies while we close our eyes and think of someone else."

He heaves a sigh, rakes a hand through his hair.  "I hope not."

"If it comes to that, should we stop?" she asks, curious again, guard uncharacteristically missing.

He contemplates it.  He's realized that they're both using each other to an extent, but there's something about that scenario that is particularly depressing. The brief flashes of Clarke he has now already make him feel a little uncomfortable.

"Maybe," he decides. Or doesn't.

She shrugs.  "Yeah, maybe."

* * *

 

Clarke doesn't come to his tent often, or, at least, less often than before, so she isn't who he expects when a girl enters his tent at night.  

He'd been reclining on the bed, still but restless, when his eyes locked on her slightly fidgeting form. 

He immediately sits up, hand running through his hair roughly. 

"Clarke," he uses as a greeting, surprise coloring his voice. 

She grimaces a smile at him in response, and he hasn't seen her this agitated in a while. It puts him on edge.

"What's wrong?" he rasps, making to stand, but Clarke waves a dismissive hand and so he stays where he is. 

She starts pacing. 

"It's just," the words burst forth, like they've been locked in her chest all day, "It's been a  _week_ since we tried doing anything about our people in Mount Weather.  I just can't get over how it's been a week, only a week, and yet who knows what could be happening in there..."

He sighs, understanding completely, and how time here moves like he never thought it could.  Days feel like weeks... a week might as well be a month. 

"Bellamy," her voice almost cracking, and it's one of the more heartbreaking ways he's ever heard his name, "They aren't safe there.  I just... I just  _left_ them _."_

"Hey," he says, catching her wrist as her steps take her near him.  She jerks in his grip, eyes shining and teeth biting her lip. 

He gently pulls her to the bed.  Her resistance crumbles and she takes a seat next to him.  

"You did what you had to do," he utters, wishing that the words hadn't started hanging so empty around all their decisions.  

She laughs, a watery, self-deprecating laugh.  "They wouldn't listen... I should've tried harder.  They didn't want to hear me."

Bellamy realizes he hasn't let go of her wrist when he notices the thrum of her pulse against his thumb.  

He doesn't let go. 

"We'll get them back," he says, promises. 

She's not crying, but he hears her sniff as she nods her head slightly.  

"Hey," he repeats firmly, his hand moving naturally to squeeze above her knee, where it rests so close to his own.

"We can do this," he stresses, hunching his shoulders a bit so he can look at her head on.  

Her eyes flicker back to his, less cold and more delicately hopeful than he's used to seeing.  Or maybe it's just that he never sees them in this proximity.  

God she's close.

He follows her gaze when it moves to his hand on her leg. 

Her hand tentatively reaches out to cover his own, fingers curling a bit under his to hold on.

Bellamy is grateful she isn't looking at him, because his expression (' _you have the WORST motherfucking heart-eyes for her, Bellamy, oh my_  god,' Raven always says, whatever fucking heart-eyes are) is probably very telling.  

He's trying not to think about how much bigger his hand is than hers, how much surface area his palm covers on her leg, how much soft skin he could touch if she wasn't wearing pants. 

His eyes flicker back to her face.  She's already looking at him, and when he meets her gaze she gives him one of those small, special, fragile half-smiles that are only really a gradual upward curve of the corner of her chapped lips, showing more in the way her eyes soften than anything to do with her mouth.

And- he can't help it, all the things he feels for this girl boiling up inside him to the point where he might burst, when his index finger goes rogue and ever so slightly begins moving slowly back and forth by her knee. 

Bellamy's so focused on her that he notices her silent, but sharp, inhale by the way her nose flares and chest rises. 

Her fingers shift against his, adjusting her loose grip to allow for the movement.  Her eyes are bottomless, swallowing him whole, the blue all he can see. He instinctively starts fighting it.  This earth has primed his survival instincts, and right now they're telling him not to drown.  That this brand of peace will not be his. 

Her fingers card through his, grip tightening.  

This is the moment Raven Reyes storms into the tent, not even searching the area to find him as she shucks off her jacket.  

"Hey, Bellamy, you would not fucking believe-  _oh_."  She freezes, jacket dangling off of one wrist as she stares at them.  

Raven's expression would be comical if not for the way Clarke tenses next to him. 

Her hand starts slipping away, but he flips his over fast (faster than he ever had when he and O would play countless games of Hot Hands on the Ark) to catch hers, palm to palm, and press it back to her thigh.

Her fingers flex under his.

Raven's eyebrows are raised so high they may as well not even exist on her face.

She laughs awkwardly. "Well..." she starts, a smirk starting to form on her lips. 

Clarke's hand is struggling like a trapped animal, and, a bit stung, he lets her pry it loose. 

Clarke's standing up briskly, telling Raven something like, "We were just talking about Mount Weather strategy," or whatever, because he can only manage to stare at her back and notice the lamp light catching in her hair and try to keep his heart from burning, or freezing, or disappearing. Whatever. 

Then the sun's disappearing from his tent, and once again, it's night. 

Raven's standing in front of him, her amusement morphing into concern as he starts to notice the air is back in the room. 

Sucking in deep breath, his head falls into his hands.

"Whoa," she says, "What happened here?"

He feels better, that she's here, but he can't have sex with her right now, not when he was two moment away from giving in and letting himself drown. All he can think of is Clarke and her hand and the way she looked at him.

"Look, Raven... I can't tonight.  I don't think I can tonight." 

She stares at him for a moment.  She shrugs.

"Move over," she demands, and did she not just hear him?

She's already shoving at his shoulder.  So fucking pushy.

"Scoot," she insists as she kicks off her boots.

Huffing, he slides more to his left, giving Raven the space to clamor into bed next to him. 

She silences his forming protests with a look.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Her tone is blunt.

Bellamy shakes his head.

"Okay," she says easily, "then just let me try to be here for you, okay?"

She settles into his side, his arm automatically raising so her head can fit on his shoulder.  When he lowers it, he lets it fall loosely around her.  

She hooks her arm over his middle, and sighs. 

Maybe Bellamy should feel uncomfortable.  It's basically a rule that they don't cuddle, but maybe that only applies to after sex.  

But he's less terrified, of Clarke, of his emotions, when she's near.  

* * *

 

It's almost unfair, since Raven knows Clarke so well, that he doesn't really know Wick. 

Bellamy supposes he doesn't have to know the man to see how he looks at Raven, to notice how intuitively he teases her, how often he can get her to smile. 

"So, when are you going to do something about it?" he asks one day, when they're taking a break in between their respective jobs around camp for water. 

Raven just shoots him a tired look, one eyebrow shooting up.  

"When am I going to do what about what, Bellamy," her voice flat.  

"You know what," he counters, absently scanning to see if the man in question is within earshot.  He's not even visible in the yard, so Bellamy resumes looking at her expectantly. 

Raven glares up at him, but he doesn't let up.  Raven and Wick, they're good together. 

"It's not like with you and Clarke, okay?" she finally says, exasperated.  "Clarke is always going to be with you."

Indignation has half-formed thoughts moving his lips-  _always going to be with him_ , how can she even say something like that in a place like this, when not even a weeks ago Clarke had been missing with limited hope of discovery how  _dare-_  but Raven quickly waves away his response.

"I mean, where you go, she's going to be there too. Where she goes, you'll go.  That's just how you guys are.  You're... together."

She shifts her weight on her feet, a small sigh escaping her lips. 

"Wick..." she shrugs.  "He's older, and-"

Bellamy opens his mouth again to protest- already starting to gesture to himself- but Raven's prepared for it and steam rolls over him. (Typical.)

" _And_ , even though he's helped us before, if something changes about camp, when we get back our people from Mount Weather... I don't expect him to stand by me.  By us."

"I think that's something you should let him decide for himself," he points out, but she just does that stupid gritted fake half-smile thing and shrugs. 

"Sure," she drawls, and he can only shake his head, knowing she won't heed his advice. 

Quiet lapses between them.  

Bellamy bites his lip, but can't quite stop the words from tumbling out.

"You think..." he hesitates as Raven turns curious eyes, ones without their defining flint, up at him, "You think that when we get them back, they won't want to stay here?"

His tone is more unsure than he'd wish, but he can't take it back now.

"Well, I can tell you that you want to be anywhere but here," she responds bluntly.  "Clarke is barely keeping herself in check under her mom's thumb.  Why wouldn't the others feel the same?"

He looks away, eyes catching on the lush, green forest beyond the charged wire and metal pieces enclosing the camp.  

"That's different," he says, "And Clarke will forgive her mother." 

The words are heavy.    

"Besides... my crimes are different than theirs.  Parents... their parents could be here.  Hell, Miller's dad is in the guard. Better weapons, more fortified camp... it doesn't make sense to leave.  We were hardly surviving before they got taken away.  Our old camp is a mass grave site."

He's unprepared for the hand that slides up to his shoulder.

Raven steps in front of him, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze when he tries to avoid her. 

He gives her what she wants, and meets unexpectedly soft eyes. 

"If you wanted to leave, they would follow you.   _I_ would follow you."

Her words threaten to sink him whole, threaten to loosen his hold on the definite grasp on who he is and what he deserves.  ' _Who we are and who we need to be to survive are two very different things_ '... he hopes his words have worked as they intended for Clarke, to keep her from following him down to whatever level he's descended to, but he sure as hell knows those aren't words that work for him.  

"They'd follow  _Clarke,"_ he says firmly, gently grabbing her wrist and bringing it back to her side.  

"And Clarke is too smart to turn from a place like this."

He turns sharply and walks away, the final words left unsaid but loud and clear between them as her stare burns into his retreating back:

_And I'll go, or stay, no matter how trapped I feel, wherever Clarke is._

 

_~_


End file.
